Music that moves you

Category Archives: recordings

Head on over to Music to Swear By to listen to this weeks’ podcast featuring Ryan, John, and me. Over the course of the podcast we talk about our experiences playing in this band. I learned a lot about Ryan and John – things they never told me about life, love, the universe.

Like yesterday, I will be unable to post this beautifully-haunting rendition of Mason Jennings’ “Nothing” on account of the stupid laws of this fair land we call, “home”.

Thankfully, YouTube has a deal with the big music publishing companies that allows me to post videos of Mason Jennings’ “Nothing”. Here is one such recording from May 2008. Email me if you want to hear the new recording.

This song, as you know, is about a song. The title of both songs is, “Let’s get funky!”.

A few days ago, I stumbled across an old recording of the original song from 1997. While it has lost the rich horns and Bob’s voice that accompanied the original recording, I am pleased to say that today’s recording has lost none of the luster that made the original a success.

I recently travelled to Shoreview, MN to record an episode of the Music to Swear By podcast with with co-hosts, Tony, Paul, and Dave. The guys were gentlemanly and smart despite their penchant for the F-word (or maybe because of it).

Over the next 8 days, I will be releasing a series of 8 recordings Tony made during the podcast both with the band and solo after the band left.

This first song is one of my favorites to play live. It is called, “Kirsten Dunst”.

Our episode of the podcast will air on Wednesday next week with a preview scheduled to be posted this Friday.

Wow! “Leaving L.A.” was featured on an episode of NPR’s “The Story”. Awesome! The song is played at the end of the first segment and can be listened to here. The song is played for 17 seconds about 1/4 of the way through the episode. Yahoo!!!

We are really in the home stretch now, because this means that we are done with the recording and re-recording of things. In all actuality, the recording process is a bit more disjointed than I indicate above, with parts being added and re-recorded at my producer’s advice.

Noah is a pro on many fronts. Recording engineer, musician, vocalist, and producer. We utilized him in all of these capacities for the new record. It is a real pleasure working with a pro. I mean, everyone and his grandma can record stuff these days, but a pro brings something else to the equation. It’s a work ethic. It’s a mastery of his craft. It’s a trust. It’s an understanding that this album is his as much as it is mine. He is an artist, and his signature is all over it in subtle ways.

Today, for kicks, I decided to try streaming and recording a live concert from my living room. And hot damn! It worked!! Check it out:

I think I will try to do one of these regularly… Plus, with UStream, you can interact with me live if you happen to be online while I am recording. I’m going to mull this over a bit, and I’ll let you know how it develops.

There’s this song by The Blow called, “True Affection“, that I absolutely love. It is beautiful, catchy, and simple and means something different to everyone who listens to it. THAT is the sign of a good song. When it means something to you. The great songs mean different things to you over time.

For me, “True Affection” has changed from a song that describes an ex-girlfriend to a song that is a euphemism for life. We are always gasping for air, looking for that one big thing to solve all of our problems and make us happy. But we are always drowning, anchored by reality.

Yesterday, I set out to test UStream‘s capabilities, and I could think of no better song to record than the aforementioned one:

I realized today that our music was not available for sale on this website. WTF?! How did that happen?

So, I created a page in the main menu to allow for that! Enjoy!

If you have been waiting for years for this advanced functionality to come to the Internets, then simply click the button below. Of course, you always have the option of downloading our music from any of the online music retailers (iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc.).

Yesterday, I wrapped up recording guitars on “Lori won’t get out of my way!” The song needed some beef, and I think the new guitar parts add just that. The parts are more varied than on other songs, as I used BOTH acoustic and distortion sounds, all from the ol’ Marshall stack. Of course, the new parts haven’t cleared Noah’s amazing ear yet, so we’ll see if they make the final cut.

I spent a few hours yesterday pounding out some licks for “Rock Star” on my Electric Hamer guitar and Marshall JCM 900 stack. Overall I am satisfied with the parts, but they don’t hold water next to Kevin’s wailing guitar solo at the end of the song.

Yesterday, I recorded electric guitar parts for “It’s time to decide!”, which is a track off of our forthcoming release, Faraway Farm. The parts are sweet and smooth, straying towards the acoustic edge of the Marshall stack than the other parts I have been recording recently. Listen to “It’s time to decide!“

Yesterday, I spent 6 hours recording some scorching ambiance and lead lines for “2 Sisters“. Every time I plug my Marshall stack in, I get lost in the beautiful noises that it makes. It has surprising range and crunches when I push it. My solid state Fender Princeton Chorus, on the other hand, produces a softer, more processed sound that has nowhere near the razor sharp edge of its big, green brother on the other side of the room. It’s kind of funny, because about 12 years ago, I traded a Marshall JCM 800 stack for that little Princeton Chorus – What was I thinking?!!?

Fender has since discontinued the Princeton Chorus, whereas the JCM 800 has gone on to become a collector’s item. Darn.

It’s been a while since I played “Kirsten Dunst” with a band. The song, which was put on tape during my run with the Speakeasy Heroes in the summer of 2000, has remained a fan favorite (and a Toby favorite) despite the fact that I only play it when I play solo at unsuspecting coffee shops and bars. Jim has been requesting it for years at shows, and, until last night, I had never dusted it off in the band setting. So, tonight at the Dinkytowner, we will be opening with it. YEAH!!!

By the way, band practice last night was fun, but it was sloppy as %#^$! I hadn’t really played guitar since I left for San Francisco 3 weeks ago, and my hands felt like rubber, bouncing around at the whim of the laws of momentum. My brain has not quite wrestled those hands to the ground yet, but when it does – watch out!